A Kinder Capitalism?

Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Germany called for a “social market economy” in the wake of the fiscal crisis that has gripped much of Europe over the past year. In a talk delivered on May 30 at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Cardinal Marx, the archbishop of Munich and Freising and a member of both the Congregation for Catholic Education and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said the economy needed to move “beyond capitalism” in order to be more fair. He added that he was not calling for the abolition of capitalism, saying that capitalism was “an element” in the social market economy he has in mind. But Cardinal Marx suggested that it was the practice of “financial capitalism” in the era since the fall of the Iron Curtain that had brought Europe to its crisis point today.